


Garden of Adonis

by Tonight_At_Noon



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Superheroes/Superpowers, Art, F/M, Funny, Humor, It's a weird one guys, Mild Sexual Content, Nude Modeling, Sexual Tension, but also please enjoy, prepare yourselves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:27:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22174042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tonight_At_Noon/pseuds/Tonight_At_Noon
Summary: Darcy is a recovering sex addict - okay, okay, a recovering love addict - whose therapist suggests she sign up for an activity to help relieve built-up tension. Darcy settles on an innocent sounding drawing class titled "The Art of Nature." But on the first day she realises she horribly misunderstood the name.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Darcy Lewis
Comments: 6
Kudos: 116





	Garden of Adonis

**Author's Note:**

> What is up guys? Here is something kinda ridiculous that I've been writing in snippets for a few months. It's funny (I think), weird, and hopefully an all around pleasurable experience. I had fun with this one. It's innocent enough, but it does have its deeper moments. 
> 
> Title comes from the one and only Edmund Spenser's "Faerie Queene."
> 
> Enjoy.

**. **

_but well i wrote by trial, that this same_

_all other pleasant places doth excel,_

_and called is by her lost lover's name,_

_The Garden of Adonis, far renowned by fame._

\- Edmund Spenser

**. **

**. **

** Garden of Adonis **

**. **

She didn't realise what she had signed up for. The advertisement in her local newspaper called it Art of Nature and she, based on her reading comprehension skills, which she had previously assumed were up to code, thought nothing of adding her name to the roster. Her therapist kept saying she needed a way to convert all of her anxious energy into something positive. Productive. The lady suggested some type of creative outlet - and an art class seemed like an okay option. 

Nature. She could draw that. Maybe. She hadn't picked up a drawing utensil since she was in elementary school and art classes were mandatory, but how hard could drawing happy little trees be?

Except she didn't realise what she had signed up for. 

Upon entering the little studio on Main Street, her hands clinging to the bag of supplies she was forced to waste money on for this class, she found the entirely white room void of any object beyond the easels and stools meant for the burgeoning artists. The area in the middle of the room, where Darcy was expecting to find a potted plant or a stuffed bird, was empty. Well, there was a chair, which she found odd. Had she wandered into the wrong studio by accident? Was this some political protest art class about the destruction of wildlife for the sake of commercialism? 

Darcy, anxious energy abounding, tapped the shoulder of the woman nearest her. The blond-haired woman startled, nearly dropping her sketchbook, and turned, an exasperated expression hiding behind her horn-rimmed glasses. 

"Hi, sorry," Darcy said, "but I'm just checking - this is the Art of Nature class, right?" 

The woman pushed her glasses up her nose. Darcy instinctively did the same - they kept running down due to the excess amount of sweat seeping from her anxious pores. 

"Right," the woman said. She started setting up her things at the easel directly in front of her, and Darcy decided at the last second to claim the spot beside her. "Is this your first time?" 

"Uh, yeah. Thought I'd try out something new."

The woman smiled, and her smile was like lightning. Like she knew something that Darcy didn't. She started placing deliberately various coloured pencils on the easel's lip. Darcy couldn't help noticing how not-nature-like the shades were. No greens. No blues. They were all of the colours that went untouched in her box of 64 crayons when she was a kid. The beiges and peaches and wheats - the shades reserved for when they were forced to draw people. 

People. 

Darcy's jaw popped open. She slumped on her stool and stared at the open space in front of her easel, her eyes widening until she swore she saw the entire room fill her brain. 

Art of nature. Of course. What was more natural than the human body?

Lots of things, Darcy thought, her insides clenching. 

She wasn't a prude. Not in the slightest. She admired beautiful people all of the time, day and night, but always, always, from far away. And always in the privacy of her own home. She didn't like the idea of other people figuring out how sexually depraved she was. She definitely, one-hundred-percent didn't like the idea of a room full of strangers watching her slowly melt into a pile of goo at the sight of a naked human. 

No, the problem was that Darcy enjoyed the body probably a little bit too much. Her therapist called it a love addiction, but Darcy knew that was code for sex addiction. Not that she was like Casanova, sleeping with everything that came her way. In fact, she hadn't had sex in more than three years. Because of this stupid anxiety that had claimed her during her attempt at passing the Bar. Her love addiction came in the form of consuming fantasies, and not always of a sexual nature. She created brief, passionate affairs with strangers in her head even if she rarely acted on them.

Apparently, it all stemmed from the fact that she was a late bloomer. Until her senior year of high school, Darcy's chest was as flat as a sheet of paper. Boys didn't want sheets of paper. They wanted piles upon piles of crumpled pages sticking out of girls' shirts. Darcy didn't mind the flatness, though. Until her best friend in high school showed her these studies that said men were more likely to want to settle down with a woman whose cans were the size of watermelons. For fertility reasons. Even if the guy didn't realise it was for fertility reasons. Then, when she was eighteen, her sheets of paper magically transformed into crumpled pages. It felt like she had cast a growing spell on her tits - they just kept expanding outwards until she could barely see her toes.

Okay, that was an exaggeration. But still. They got big. And at first, Darcy was thrilled. But those studies had lied, and what the hell was the fuss about big boobs anyway? All she got from them were back problems and exorbitantly priced bras from special big tit boutiques. And, lest she forget, a fresh wave of harassment from the boys at her school. Because if they couldn't make fun of her for having no chest, they were gonna make fun of her for having too much. 

When she arrived at college, according to her therapist, her desires to squash the taunts of her high school bullies led her to dangerously loosen her inhibitions. And that slowly - or quickly, she still wasn't sure where she and her therapist had landed in regards to speed - led to an unhealthy attachment to sex. Or love. 

For the last few years, since she started seeing her therapist and realising what a depraved person she was, and realising that her depraved personhood had ruined her chances of passing the Bar, Darcy had stepped away from sex. And she missed it. And this was not the place for a person who missed sex. 

Darcy curved her spine even further. The top of her head brushed the metal upside-down-Y of the easel. This was a bad move, because her shirt wasn't cut appropriately and people around her could definitely see cleavage. But she didn't care. She was caught between being too embarrassed to stay and too embarrassed to flee. She needed to get out of there. Call her therapist. Crawl into a dark, sexless place and not emerge until climate change had destroyed the world and all of its inhabitants. That's what her therapist would tell her to do. 

But it was too late. The lights in the room flickered, and Darcy was transported momentarily back to elementary school. She straightened her back. Which was difficult, considering how much extra weight she had to lift. A woman stood at the back of the room dressed in art teacher clothes and grasping the light switch with a paint-crusted hand. Her grey hair glittered in the fluorescent light. Darcy bet the woman had poured glitter on her hair. That seemed like an art teacher thing to do. Or maybe the woman had a shift later at the strip club. She may be old, but Darcy could tell that behind the shawl and the long skirt there was a slender body. 

"Wonderful, wonderful," the woman said, stepping away from the light switch and coming to the centre of the room. She clutched the back of the chair and looked at all of them with wide eyes. "I'm so excited to start this three week course off with all of you. I see some familiar faces," she said, smiling, winking at the lady beside Darcy, "and some new faces." She winked at Darcy. "I'm sure you don't want a big speech from me, though, so I won't stay up here for too long. I only want to introduce the wonderful model you all will be sketching over the next few weeks. James, would you mind stepping out?"

A door opened at the back of the room and out stepped James. 

Wearing a thin robe.

Wearing a smoulder. 

Wearing confidence like he had bought it at the most luxurious, costly confidence store in the world. 

Okay. She could do this. She could act cool. She could draw this chiselled jaw and perfect hairline and light dusting of stubble and prominent forehead and spattered chest hair. She could do it without melting. It didn't matter that this was the most attractive man Darcy had seen since her college roommate introduced her to her godlike boyfriend last Christmas. It didn't matter that she was three years celibate. It didn't matter that her vibrator had died two weeks ago and she still hadn't gone out to get new batteries. 

She could do this.

"Let's not beat around the bush," the art teacher said, giggling, which seemed to give the rest of the room permission to giggle as well. "James, why don't you take off the robe and sit down. Ladies," she said, and Darcy looked around the room to see there were no other men, "I'll be walking around to assist you. Good luck."

James, oozing that confidence, untied the ribbon around his front and shrugged off his robe and all of a sudden Darcy was facing a naked Adonis. Really. He looked like a perfectly sculpted statue. Right down to the tuft of hair encircling his member.

_Member_? _Am I EL fucking James_? Darcy asked herself, realising a second too late that she was still staring between James' legs. She quickly tore her eyes away, moving them up his lined stomach to his shaded chest to his biteable throat to his eyes. Which, to Darcy's horror, were watching her. Her blood burned within her veins. She felt her skin grow hot. The space between her thighs, that ravenous space, throbbed, and she seriously contemplated bolting right then, forget the stupidly expensive art supplies, but then his stare wandered elsewhere and Darcy, unaware she had been holding her breath, released a sex-filled sigh. 

James took his place. The artists around Darcy prepared their weapons. She, the sheep that she was, followed suit, and before long she was sketching. When she ignored the lingering effects of James' eyes, she found the movement of the pencils on the canvas soothing. The teacher had switched on a relaxing playlist of melodic songs from what Darcy could only assume was the '70s, and the music guided her hand as she transported James from the real world to some distant fantasy land unfolding on her canvas. Her hand followed every curve of his body. Every shadow, every spot of hair, every line. She would have five more days to fill him in, this creation of hers, but she found herself wishing this session could last until she was finished. 

Before she was ready, before the blood between her legs had fully dispersed, the teacher called their time. Darcy observed her fellow women wiping sweat from their brows. Biting their lips. Fiends. All of them. 

She would need to call her therapist when she got home. Tell the woman that this art class idea was a horrible idea. It wasn't helping. It was making the problem worse. But also, before she got home, she would need to pick up more batteries. 

James wrapped himself up again. He chatted with the art teacher while Darcy meticulously placed the pencils back in their case. His eyes, she swore, kept flickering to her. She wasn't sure. Because she wasn't looking, because if she looked she couldn't be held responsible for what her sex-crazed, depraved mind forced her to do, but she felt the hairs on the back of her neck lift every fifteen seconds like clockwork. Finished packing her supplies, Darcy chanced a look at the man. His focus was on the teacher. 

Three. 

Two. 

One. 

His gaze slipped to her. Almost as if by accident. But she felt the purposefulness sink into her belly, and she stared, her lips slightly parted, before tearing herself away. Her skin ripped as she made her feet turn in the direction of the exit. On her way to the car, she pulled out her phone and looked up the nearest place that sold batteries. 

**.**

She didn't tell her therapist about the Adonis in her art class. Besides, he wasn't really an Adonis. He was a James. The newest Greek mythological mighty hero. He deserved his own stories. His own monsters to defeat. His own woman to tie his tale together. Darcy didn't tell her therapist about the art class at all. She lied when the woman had asked how it went. Told her there was a collection of leaves attached to a branch decorating her canvas. Which was probably bad. She wasn't an expert, but she didn't think one was supposed to keep secrets from one's therapist. Especially when said secret involved one's tendency to fall down sex-filled rabbit holes like one had a starring role in an X-rated _Alice in Wonderland_. 

She was just enjoying herself too much. Dangerously much. Her anxious, jittery, numbing thoughts about failure and the potential that she was careening towards a loveless, sexless, lawyer-less life flitted away when she sat at her stool and watched James prepare his position. They were nearly finished anyway. Only one more session after this. So, what was the harm in indulging this side of her. Aside from the fear that hit her on her drive home after each session that she was erasing three years of hard work in the span of three penis-filled weeks.

Her therapist would be so disappointed. 

But it wasn't like she had done anything. So what if her vibrator had gotten more use the last two and a half weeks than it had done in the last three years combined? At least she wasn't crafting fantasy worlds in which she and James fell madly, badly in love and had lots of sex and babies, which was her usual MO. At least she wasn't following James from the studio to his car to his home. He existed only within the confines of the art room. And, sure, occasionally in the confines of her bed, but she was a love-slash-sex addict. What else was she supposed to do? She bet even nuns had to get themselves off somehow. 

The penultimate art class ended with a bang. Darcy, ferociously shading, knocked her pack of pencils to the ground. They clattered embarrassingly over the vinyl floor. Nature-coloured pencils - the blues and greens; the shades long forgotten by Darcy - rolled as if on an incline towards the Adonis. The James. Darcy, horrified, watched them stop just at the man’s perfectly sculpted feet. She had never been a foot person, but she thought, for a second, as her mind tried distracting her from the humiliation of the whole spectacle, that for James, she just might be a foot person.

“Sorry,” she squeaked. Like a mouse. Or a vibrator turned up to its highest setting. Standing with her shoulders hunched and her dark hair covering her face like two gothic curtains, Darcy inched towards the pencils, waiting for the art teacher to snatch her back, as it seemed an unspoken rule that the space beyond the circle of easels didn’t exist to the class. For them, it was a mere photograph. Only for the teacher did it materialise. 

Nobody touched her. Though the room had gone quiet, and the silence grazed the nape of her neck. Everybody was watching her, she could feel their eyes blazing against her back. And he - he was watching her too. Not that this was unusual. She had become accustomed to his gaze in the weeks since the first session. But this was different. Instead of the blood pooling at her core, it went to her cheeks. Her chest. She burned with shame as she, at the last second, peered between her hair and caught the steel blue eyes of the man she was sure was her maker. 

He observed as she bowed before him like a poor creature offering herself up as a sacrifice to the gods. Gathering the pencils in her fist, she rose, her eyes lingering a moment too long on the still object protruding between her god’s thighs. She stood upright. No, it wasn’t upright. She was still weighed down by discomfort and celibacy and the lies she had been telling her therapist. Darcy stared at the beast - the god in the sea of men - and waited for something, anything, to happen. 

When it did - when something happened - Darcy nearly dropped the pencils again. The teacher hissed. Snapped her fingers. Darcy turned her head to the front of the room. The older woman’s pointer finger pointed at Darcy’s empty stool. She raised her eyebrows. Transported back to her schooldays, Darcy sheepishly departed the presence of her captor and returned to her seat. As she reentered the mortal realm, the scraping of pencils on canvas restarted instantly. 

Darcy’s hands could not move. She could not bring herself to complete her task. Her head was filling with those dangerous and poisonous fantasies her therapist had been trying for so long to erase. 

She pictured herself a fellow god. Aphrodite to this man’s Adonis. Together, they dotted the sky as stars, creating a constellation all their own. Theirs shined the brightest. No matter where anyone was in the world, no matter what time of year, no matter the time of day, theirs could be seen. They rivalled the sun in the daytime, and at night rivalled the moon. The other stars sneered with jealousy and envy — they wanted what she and he had. But it was theirs and theirs alone.

The sound of pencil cases snapping shut removed Darcy from her dreamlike state. She shook her head, startled to find that nearly thirty minutes had passed since the debacle with the blue and green pencils. In the back of the room, James had already robed himself. And in this moment he looked not like any Greek or Roman god but like Christ himself. A healer. A saviour. 

On cue, his eyes skated the room before landing on her. He was talking with the art teacher. His mouth moved, but his focus was clearly on Darcy and not the old, possessive woman whose spindly fingers wrapped around his upper arm as she responded to whatever he had just said. 

Looking away, an inexplicable cascade of shame pouring down her back, Darcy tidied her station as quickly as she could. Without another glance at her god, she departed the room. 

The problem, she concluded as she rushed out of the rec building, was that she liked him. A lot. The realisation struck her painfully between the ribs like a swift kick from a horse's hind leg. And her therapist had even warned her this— _this_ : falling for a person she exalted in her mind—might happen if she didn't stop being a depraved, lustful woman. And Darcy didn't listen, because she thought she was strong enough and smart enough to separate fantasy from reality. But it turned out she was weak and stupid.

Her failed Bar exam should have been enough of a clue. And now this. 

Darcy reached her rundown Civic with no access to her keys. She huffed and puffed like an angry, pig-killing wolf and dropped her things on the bonnet. Digging around her bag of pencils and erasers and measuring tools, Darcy located her keys and snatched them, thankful for once that this small Northern Virginian town had such a small population that no-one was there in the car park to witness her flailing and wolf-like outburst. 

Inside the car, Darcy made a daring decision. It was rash. She would definitely, most certainly regret it come morning, but the idea struck her like lightning and her frazzled brain concluded that it was only solution to her glaring problem. She would drive home, she thought as she stuck the key in the ignition and started the engine, and then she would march straight to her bedside table, she thought as she moved the gearshift into reverse and loosened pressure on the gas pedal, and then she would grab that vibrator and untwist its cap and pour those batteries out and stomp them, chew them, burn them until there was no chance of them ever working again. Yes. Good plan, Darcy thought as she finished reversing and moved into drive. She nodded her head, pleased with herself, and lifted her foot off of the break only to slam it back down when she glanced out the windshield to check for a clear path. 

It was him. _Him_. Darcy's jaw unhinged like a snake readying itself for the biggest meal. Her heart thrashed like a fish out of water. Her stomach clenched. Her blood rushed to her core. Blood vessels popped, dyeing her skin pink, and she felt heat spread from her toes to her forehead. 

He smiled at her, standing at the front of her car almost like a serial killer but more like an angel. The creases surrounding his mouth turned into deep crescents and Darcy frantically thought about what to do next when he stepped to the left and approached her window. She stared at him, mouth hanging by a string. He tapped on the window with a perfect knuckle. Somehow, she managed to coordinate herself enough to roll the window down. She snapped her jaw shut and blinked, waiting for him to either kiss her or kill her. She'd be fine with either.

"Hi," he said, and his voice was more magical than she could have imagined. It sounded like honey. Almost too sweet. She wanted to lick it up. "Is there any chance you could give me a ride? My car seems to have broken down." He pointed to a blue thing with its bonnet open. 

"Uh, where do you need to go?" Darcy asked, surprised she could speak at all. In awe that she sounded minutely normal. Buzzing, she pushed her glasses up her nose until they dug into her eyebrows.

His smile deepened. "Well, wherever you're going."

**.**

He fit so well inside her tiny apartment. Like a puzzle piece that had been missing for years and years and had finally made its way back home. That was how it felt having Bucky - because apparently nobody except his grandma and the art teacher called him James, and how amazing was that - scan her excessive DVD collection, occasionally turning to stare and smile at her. 

For a moment, the briefest moment, on the drive to her place Darcy contemplated the idea that this guy might truly be a rapist. Or a murderer. Or a burglar. Or, if she had hit the jackpot, a murdering rapist who dabbled in burglary. It went against all of her womanly training to invite Bucky - _Bucky_ \- into her home. But she was perceptive. Especially so since her unplanned celibacy started, as if the lack of sex had heightened her senses. Like she was a blind woman suddenly able to hear a car alarm several miles away. She got no weird or dangerous vibes from him. Only good vibes. Sweet. Gentle. 

God, she wanted him. 

Maybe she was the murdering rapist. 

But no - she could never defile such a beautiful creature. The heavens would surely revolt at the damaging loss of one of their own, and Darcy would slip through the earth into Hell where she would burn for eternity as penance for her vile crime.

"You really like Tom Hanks," Bucky said, holding up her copies of _The Burbs_ and _Turner and Hooch_. "I don't think I've ever known someone to own both of these movies. One, sure . . . but both?"

He was laughing at her, and it was kind. Not malicious. And that made Darcy smile as she moved closer to her DVD shelves. 

"Blame my mom. She sat me down in front of _Big_ when I was eight years old and I've never been the same since," Darcy explained, picking out one of her two copies of the aforementioned film - the 25th anniversary-edition with a dozen special features - and flipping it to stare at the back. She wasn't reading anything. Or observing Tom Hanks' gorgeous face. No, she was wondering how a perfect stranger could walk into her apartment and make it seem like he had lived there for as long as she had. Wondering how this - her and Bucky scanning her DVD collection - felt like just a regular weeknight.

This kind of stuff didn’t happen. She had to be dreaming. Or in a coma. Was all of this just some fantasy created by a head injury, the origin of which she didn’t remember because it was a head injury and that was just part of the deal with head injuries? 

Or, better yet, this was her very own version of _The Truman Show_. Yes. Everyone in her life was a cast member on her 24-hour-a-day, seven-days-a-week TV show. Her therapist. The possessive art teacher. Her parents, even. And that was why she had failed the Bar. The producers couldn’t risk her leaving town. They shoved Bucky into her path for ratings. It was the only explanation that made sense. Why else would a gorgeous model - _nude_ model - be in the apartment of a failed lawyer laughing with her about her obsession with Tom Hanks? 

Still pretending to scan the DVD case, Darcy decided it was time to test the waters. Was he a shark hunting for blood? Or something more innocent—a dolphin rescuing a drowning swimmer?

“What’s your favourite Tom Hanks movie?” she asked. She could tell a lot about a person based on their favourite Tom Hanks movie.

Bucky tapped the side of the shelf as if in thought. He let out a couple of _hmm_ ’s. She watched his fingertips snap against the wood and her sullied mind imagined them moving along her body. 

“ _Apollo 13_ ,” he said eventually, and Darcy’s head snapped up so quick it almost dislocated from her spine. He noticed her reaction. “Is that good or bad?”

“Good,” she said breathlessly. “Really, really good.” It was good. That was Darcy’s favourite movie. Not just from the talented Tom Hanks but of all time. 

“Oh.” Bucky smiled again. At her. And his eyes twinkled like a glittering midnight sky of moonlit stars. “Good.”

As the time ticked by, Darcy and Bucky continued their film discussion. He hated most all superhero movies but he loved Tobey Maguire’s _Spider-Man_. _I Am Legend_ made him cry. So did Zeffirelli’s _Romeo and Juliet_. He had never seen any of _The Godfather_ films, which was okay because neither had Darcy, and he was the only other person aside from herself she had met who had grown up watching _Bugsy Malone_. 

“That’s my gangster movie,” he said, laughing. “Little kids pretending to be adults, singing and shooting pizza dough out of fake guns.”

The sun was slowly disappearing. Darcy kept having to switch on the various lamps around the apartment, because her place didn’t come with any built-in light fixtures except for in the bathroom. The pair were bathed in artificial yellow light that made his blue eyes - which were more than blue, but she had been using flesh-coloured shades for so long she had all but forgotten the names of the more vibrant colours - glow like the ocean at sunset. 

Everything was starting to look a little bit too romantic. Like this was the aftermath of a fancy dinner date. Like they had been interacting like this - intimately - for longer than just the early evening. Panic rose in her throat, and she nodded, smiling tightly, as Bucky continued talking. She couldn’t hear what he was saying and simply hoped it wasn’t anything that required a response. 

This was bad. This was so fucking bad. How could she have let herself get into this mess? She was a bad recovering sex - no, _love_ \- addict. Her therapist would have no choice but to fire her, send her to some sex-slash-love addict recovery centre where she would inevitably die sexless and alone, if word ever got out that Darcy was liaising with the nude model from her art class. 

Look, it wasn’t always like this for Darcy. This oxymoronic lust for and simultaneous fear of sex and intimacy. There was a guy - because there would always be a guy; what mostly-straight-woman’s story was complete without a guy - her freshman year of college. She had arrived in West Virginia with a slew of new clothes designed to perfectly show off her newfound chest and there was someone in her Mass Media and American Politics course who took notice. By this time, she was used to attention, but the whole dating thing was still foreign. As an eighteen-year-old virgin, she wanted more than anything to take the bull by the balls and live the fantasy she had dreamed up the day of her sexual awakening. 

She now, several years on, realised that being eighteen and a virgin was not only perfectly normal but also preferable. If she could have it her way, she would build a time machine, go back to that first semester, and forbid herself from ever having sex. If she managed that, she would be a lawyer now. A sexually charged, angry lawyer, but were those not the ones who always won their cases? 

The guy ended up not fulfilling any of her fantasies. Following their split - if one could call it that; she had never quite figured out if they were a real couple or not - Darcy thought she had learned her lesson. No mind-blowing daydreams meant no disappointment. But the whole ordeal had the opposite effect. Her daydreams got more explicit. More frequent. More distracting. All while her actual interactions with possible partners got worse. And her poor, overworked therapist had been trying for so long now to help her. But she was too far gone. She could see that now. Now, here, with _him_.

As Darcy stood in her apartment, barely able to hear anything Bucky the Nude Model was saying, she could only think that this would end as tragically as all of her other attempts at meaningful relationships. Probably more tragically, considering that she had already seen him naked. Several times. Considering that she had a sketchbook filled with drawings of his naked body. 

Fuck. This was a bad idea. This had all been a terrible, unforgivable mistake. She should tell him to leave. She should burn that sketchbook. The pencils would have to go too. Even the greens and blues. 

“Hey, where’d you go?”

Darcy almost fell backwards. Stumbling, she caught herself on the DVD shelf and plastered on a smile. “Nowhere,” she said, feigning nonchalantness. She didn’t think it was convincing - her perception of her body language was completely off. “I’m here. Still, uh, still here. Totally listening. Totally paying attention.”

Moving ever so slightly closer to her, Bucky leaned against the DVD shelf as well. “Sorry,” he said, and she wanted to tell him he had nothing to be sorry for unless, of course, he was about to murder her, but his mouth started moving again before she could gather her thoughts. “Was it weird of me to come up to you in the parking lot earlier? I’ve been told by my friends that I come on a little strong sometimes.”

“Pshh.” Darcy was not sure what that noise was meant to be, but there was no sucking it back up now. She waved her hand in front of her. “No. It was good. All good.” Then, “Wait. Did your car actually break down?”

“Yes,” he said. His face pinched. “Well . . . sort of.”

“Sort of.”

He rubbed the back of his neck, his bicep or tricep or whatever the muscle was called pulsed against the fabric of his long-sleeved crewneck. He refused to meet her eye. A rosy tint dusted his stubbled cheeks. He was nervous. It was adorable. And goddammit it was fucking sexy. 

“Yeah . . . sort of.”

“You gonna elaborate on that?” Darcy asked, holding back a laugh of disbelief. 

Bucky scanned the DVDs on the bottom shelves. “Well, my car has been giving me trouble lately. And I was basically out of gas when I arrived at the studio this afternoon.”

“But your hood was up when I almost hit you with my car. Was that for show?” 

His eyes suddenly moved upwards. They stabbed Darcy, doused her in gasoline and set her ablaze. The sinking sun filled the room with liquid gold and Darcy felt herself sinking into the floor.

She gripped the shelf tighter. 

“Yes,” he said, and Darcy, her therapist, the Bar, those stupid boys from high school be damned, pushed off of the shelf and leapt for Bucky. 

He caught her, as if this were some choreographed dance, and she kissed him without giving herself time to second guess the decision. His mouth invited her in. Warmth spread throughout her blood, lighting her from the inside. He tasted of mint. He smelled of pine needles and fresh air and a little bit like pencil shavings. 

Encircling her waist in his large hands, Bucky pulled her closer. His fingertips slipped low. Dipped beneath the hem of her shirt. Touched the snowy skin of her back. 

Darcy pulled away. Breathless, swollen, she tugged on the strands of hair at Bucky’s neck and forced him to look her in the eye. “I need you to know something,” she said, because she knew where this was going, and while she was eager, excited, terrified, she wanted to make this confession. “I haven’t had sex in a while. Like, a long while.”

“Long?” he said, his eyes half-closed. His mouth pulled slightly up in a lazy, happy smile. 

She pondered briefly what it would be like to lose her virginity to a man like this. (Not that she believed in the construct, but sometimes, when it wasn’t being used as a way to police women’s bodies, and when it was about two people entrusting themselves to one another so intimately, it was a beautiful thing.) And then she realised that this was sort of going to be like losing her virginity. All over again.

It didn’t go well the first time - lots of crying and lots of blood, neither of which were hers - but she had the strangest feeling that this was going to be the fantasy version she had imagined at her sexual awakening. The movie-like version. With fireworks. Smooth movements. No weird sounds. Twelve orgasms. 

Then her mind, because of course - sex addict, remember? - drifted to his virginity. Which lucky girl got to pop his cherry? Was he as naturally talented beneath the sheets as she assumed? Probably. He struck her as a natural. 

“Years,” she said eventually.

He did something strange then. No. Not strange. Just . . . different. 

His hand moved out from underneath her shirt and tucked a few strands of hair behind her ear. He leaned his forehead against her, and she was beginning to believe that she and him were actually not strangers at all but lovers torn apart at the creation of the world. She had spent her whole life trying to find him. He had spent his whole life trying to find her. And now they were together, and everything felt right. 

She didn’t feel like a sex-crazed lunatic as he rubbed his thumb against her ear. Okay, maybe she felt a little bit like a sex-crazed lunatic. But not nearly as sex-crazed as normal.

“I won’t hurt you,” he said, and she knew he only meant that he wouldn’t hurt her during the inevitable sex part of this encounter, but she had the strangest, strongest feeling that this was more like a promise to be kept over a lifetime. 

“I know,” she said. She was convinced of the truth of her statement. She kissed him as he held her face.

Their bodies clunked through her small apartment until they reached the bedroom. Excitement bubbled within Darcy. After, she would be filled with fear. Anxiety. Trepidation. That she had ruined all of her therapist’s hard work. That this was all some big misunderstanding. That he did this with all of the women in the classes he nude-modelled for. 

But tonight, with the final pink rays of the sun bathing her room, Darcy would forget all of that. She would be free. 

Darcy tore herself away from Bucky and tore at his shirt like a rabid animal. She clawed at the fabric. Ripped it upwards until her arms couldn’t stretch any further. Bucky laughed and completed the motion, and even though she had seen him naked several times, getting an up-close look at his chest and his abs and the hair scattered everywhere made Darcy’s mouth water. 

“Wow,” she whimpered.

“You sound like you’ve never seen me without my shirt on before.”

“Ha, yeah, but I’m usually not allowed so close,” she said, thinking momentarily of the possessive art teacher. “I’m not allowed to touch it.” Her hand reached forward and she placed her index finger on his chest, right against his sternum. 

Maybe it was her cold hand. Maybe it was her. Either way, he sucked in a sharp breath and held it as she laid her palm flat against him. She felt his heart beating. Hammering. It pounded against her fingertips. She imagined the blood in his body working its way through his veins. Wondering why it was moving so much faster than normal. 

“You’re beautiful,” she said, staring at his nipples as they hardened against her breath. She peered up at him through her eyelashes. His eyes were fully closed, but they opened after a few loud seconds.

He looked like he was about to say something back. Perhaps tell her she was beautiful too. Or that this was all a mistake and he needed to leave before things got too out of hand. 

She never found out what words were on the tip of his tongue. Before he spoke, his eyes drifted to her bedside table and widened into the size of saucepans. A slow smile crept upon his face. She followed his gaze and nearly threw up. 

Vibrator. In plain sight. Fully juiced batteries sitting inside. 

“No, I can explain,” she said, scrambling for that magic explanation. 

What would her therapist tell her to say in this situation? She would tell Darcy to throw the vibrator out of the window and stab Bucky in the lung to keep him from re-entering the world and telling people that she was a sex-slash-love addicted, demented loon. She probably had instructions on how to properly and efficiently clear away a murder scene. How to get blood out of the cracks in hardwood flooring. 

Darcy’s brain fried. She had nothing to say. 

“You don’t have to say anything,” Bucky said, and his voice sounded angelic. He really was a saviour of some kind. 

And she knew deep in her feminist core that she didn’t need saving. But it was nice - comforting- knowing that if she ever did, whether it be from her depraved mind or the depraved minds of others, he could be there. 

“It’s a great story, though,” Darcy murmured.

“You can tell me later.”

He kissed her again. And again, moving her closer to the bed, working her shirt up and up and up until it was off, taking her glasses with it. He kissed down her throat, his fingers expertly undoing the hooks of her bra. His mouth kept dipping lower. Sucking on her skin, he took her breasts between his lips and her eyes shot open as if she had been electrocuted. 

Soon, there were no clothes between them. Soon, there was the sound of a wrapper tearing, and Darcy guided Bucky towards her, gasping as he entered. She squeezed her eyes shut. Clawed at his back. Everything burned. Her core, her chest, her soul. She consumed him with heavenly fire. He kissed her, swallowing her screams. The beast within her awoke. It came alive with each pass of Bucky’s soft tongue. 

There would be no survivors.

Darcy was okay with that. Dying in the arms of her Adonis, she would be happy.

**.**

The lights in the room spasmed as Darcy finished sharpening her pencils. She brushed the shavings that had landed on her lap onto the floor and straightened her back. Scanning the room, she noticed each seat was packed. At least one person had been missing from each class since the first day, but as this was their final session, every woman had returned, hoping to get one last glance at the subject of their artwork. 

Darcy smiled to herself. She focused her attention on the centre of the room. The instructor’s clompy heels drummed against the floor as she moved past the easels to stand beside the stool where soon a naked form would sit.

“So happy to see all of your faces here today,” she said, wringing her hands. The multi-coloured bracelets on her wrists jingled. “Sadly, this is our farewell session until my next class - keep an eye out for that announcement, by the way - but I have been overjoyed at the work each of you has done.” 

She looked directly at Darcy then, which made the younger woman shiver. Did she know something? No. She couldn’t. 

“I don’t want to get too sappy,” the art teacher continued, “so, let us begin. James!” 

Darcy’s heart thudded. Her blood vessels expanded, pumping blood to the surface of her skin. She held her breath, waiting. 

The door behind the instructor opened and Bucky stepped out wearing that white robe. Oozing all of that confidence that Darcy wanting to lap up. If she didn’t have a vague sense of control over herself, she would be on the floor on her hands and knees, licking the floor by Bucky’s feet. 

Without another word from the instructor, Bucky removed the robe. Like Pavlov’s dog, Darcy’s mouth filled with saliva. She swallowed thickly. Clearing her throat, she repositioned her glasses. As he turned his back to the class, Darcy caught sight of the thin pink ribbons running down either side of his spine. She shuddered. Memories from the previous few nights bombarded her mind and she had to expel them before she pounced.

Turning and positioning himself exactly, Bucky sat on the stool. His eyes found Darcy. And hers found him. And her sketchbook lay open before her, though she had no more work to do. 


End file.
